Anastasia had always been subjected to soulless rooms, and no necessarily from just their appearances. The most unbearable part of the court rooms, aside the wrong judgements that had ruined lives in front of her, was her inability to counteract them because of their 'faithfulness' to the laws.
With every successful case she had won her mind came back to the faces of those who were failed by the system, and she repeatedly reminded herself of those who were failed by her.
She sat with a professional air that accentuated the stillness of the office, it was on the second floor in the parliament and there she had waited for a long, hoping that soon enough a person would materialize from behind the door and answer all her questions.
The one she desired was definitely not the man sitting in front of her.
With a miserable smile, he stared at her, waiting for her to ask her questions.
And with contemptuous eyes she finally spoke,
" I believe I had requested to speak to Mr. Campbell?"
"G'afternoon miss, how are you doing today?"
"Good Afternoon." She repeated, confused, "I had called for Mr. Campbell, is he not present?"
"Mhm. I hear you miss, but the old folk couldn't come."
"Why is that?" Her tone had a dangerous formality to it.
"Bloody health issues. But don'cha worry. I'll be here to wrap up your worries so you can go home satisfied." He shot her a ridiculous thumbs up, but the way in which he did it made it appear as if he was mocking her.
The man introduced himself as Hannes, an executive in the Marshal Department. With a quick handshake under the fluorescent lights, she retrieved a file from her briefcase and set it in front of him.
"Though the decision making powers does not necessarily stand with you, I'm sure that as an executive you can understand the cases I'm putting forward."
"Mhm'." He flipped through the files callously, "So? What's all this fuss about miss?"
"Well, when are you going to take action? Those are at least a dozen cases of just last month, where many attacks were done on Aaergalians, when are you going to issue an official statement addressing the situation?"
"Ah! Miss you need not worry. Our department has already been tracking those bloody fools down! It'll be over much before than you think! Don'chya think that's good?"
As always, she maintained herself, not letting an ounce of anger show on her face.
"I see. That is commendable, but if I may ask, what measures have you taken?"
"Hmm? Our surveillance facilities have been improving, and...patrols and..all the ruckus's been controlled!" He managed.
Just how good was this man at pissing her off?
She pressed the matter further, which eventually led to Hannes confessing that their official procedures had been slacking off for some time now, and that they were working non stop in amending it.
"But worry not! You won't be affected by those prats' meddling!"
"Are you reassuring me at face value, or do you plan to actually do something?"
"Of course we're planning to change things! No matter gets through us unattended! Just ask your husband! He'll tell you a thing or two."
She remained silent and simply stared at Hannes, expecting him to crack and tell her it was a joke.
"He's been off for a week but he knows the ins and outs of this place! If there's any lad that's worth your time, It's got to be Johann. Not to say he isn't already?" He winked at her, "Ask him a few things Miss, he'll surely open up to everything. Even things that might be really troublesome."
She did her best to ignore his statements but the more he spoke the more agitated she became.
But it was that final statement that struck a cord.
"He got it easiest out of all of us anyways."
"My husband was attacked!" The realization of her own voice echoing loudly through the room dawned on her, she coughed and composed herself, "Our safety, not just of my family but for all people sharing my origins has been sidelined. What is the reason for this?" She pressed on, "Have you abandoned all of us?" That hit the final nail on the head as Hannes tried to reason his way out of the conversation.
"Nay! nay! False! Our departments just been...busy with foolhardy work! Papers and the bloody rumors of coups! It's hard handling all of it for us and the other departments!" He reasoned.
"Mr. Hannes. There is one question you have still not answered."
His eyes wavered from hers to around random objects in the room, "Is that so?"
"Why is the government not doing coverage of the Marlen-Aaergale war anymore? A war can be neutralized but the grip it has on the world cannot be halted so abruptly. From almost everywhere as well. What is being hidden?"
"There is nothing being hidden Mrs. Everett! If you're so unsure you can ask-" The death stare he got shook him to the core, "I-I assure you matters are underway to be resolved, other matters I must not disclose."
"Must not disclose?"
So that was the heart of the matter.
As the apologetic Hannes accompanied her to the exit, prattling on about the insignificant victories of the government and even mentioning a man named Trivola who had personally identified and neutralized enemies of war and introduced new laws.
She politely brushed the meaningless details off, as politely as she could after bashing on him for being ignorant that is.
A deep sigh escaped from her as she straightened her clothes, a black coat with a flared skirt, and adjusted her glasses before taking off for the post office.
At the reception window, she slid a letter assigned for an off shore delivery, but the letter was passed back to her, with not even half as much eagerness with which she had passed it onto the woman at the reception. She shook her head and claimed that without proper ID she would be unable to accept the letter.
A little back and forth pursued between them, which ended in Anastasia quietly taking her leave from the place, considering it in her best interest to not cause much of a scene.
That was especially true with how her position in the country was rapidly changing.
The ambiguity of her treatment here, did not bother as as much as the affect it could have on her family.
With the Trivola act being welcomed with open arms by the government vague terms which she had repeatedly tried to be assessed by the parliament and failed.
The devastation stemmed from how powerless she felt. The same feeling she had been fighting her own life and just when it seemed she had succeed, it all came and smashed her to the ground with excessive force that was hard to recover from.
She repeated in her mind.
Had she not learned anything from her family?
She shot down the thought as soon as it arose though, because she knew that he would most definitely have scolded her for downing herself again.
How could she tell him that it felt unavoidable?
That no matter how hard she tried, it always felt that things were slipping out of her hands and that at one point, there would come a time where she would be unable to hold onto all the things she has.
Not because they had become too much, but simply because her hands grew smaller.
Walking through the pleasantly crowded streets of Old Magshire, she found her worries slowly easing off. She saw the usual atmosphere of people walking by, smiling and waving to another. Children frolicking on the streets being reprimanded by the guards, who mind you, would be the very same people drunk, laying on the street roads at night.
When she entered into the Goldford District, a sudden nervousness crept up her neck. It felt strange and evoked an eerie stillness in her heart.
She marched along the street to her house. Opening the door and expecting a rabid Ethan ruining the place, she was shocked to find it completely shrouded in darkness.
She trudged forward, trying not to give into her worries.
Where was Ethan? Where was Johann?
She was searching for either of them to be lazing in one of the rooms, but not finding them at all was terrifying her.
Her breathe hitched and her body grew heavier, yet she moved forward not allowing herself to falter.
Slowly moving through the kitchen without any source of light to turn to, she snapped at the strange noises coming from inside the house.
There was screeching, shouting. It was scratchy, low and unbearable.
At this hour, with neither Ethan nor Johann home for some odd reason, it left only a few possibilities for what had happened.
And those possibilities made her heart sink
She still muttered to herself, "Everything's fine. It's all fine." As if it would do something. As if it would calm her heart that was about to be shattered upon seeing a terrific scene.
What if they had got to them? To Johann...To Ethan and Reina?
She bolted through the doors and the screaming, only got marginally louder and became more static.
Then she entered the room.
And was jumped by Ethan who turned on the lights at the instant and scared her.
Instantly, Anastasia's hand flew up and she Slapped him. Again and again and again.
She slapped him on the cheek and her hands moved, quicker and quicker as they wrapped around him.
She had slapped him, then she was embracing him, holding his head to heart tightly, as if he would melt from her embrace and flow away from her.
She was scared.
Always so scared that someone would take him.
Take Reina.
Take her children away from her.
And she wouldn't let that happen.
"Mum! I'm sorry mum! Mum...please! I'm sorry! Please don't cry! Please!"
Anastasia looked up to meet his face and she saw his eyes red, and yet he was still worried about her, why she was crying. He was regretting why he had done this in the first place, that it made his mother cry. The cassette player fell silent at the touch of a button.
And that, only made the tears come faster.
※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※
"Mum...I'm sorry. Are you feeling better?" He asked anxiously.
She sniffed for the last time and calmed herself, with Ethan sitting besides her she smiled at him reassuringly.
She raised her arm.
There it comes, Ethan thought.
He closed his eyes ready to take whatever came then...
"Geez....you had me so worried." She ruffled his air with glamor.
"I...I just thought that it'd be funny...and I...did that. I'm sorry mum...I made you so scared, I didn't know-" She shushed him.
"You know. It scared me a lot. It did. But do you know what scared me even more?"
He looked in her eyes searchingly, "W-What?"
"Not finding my children." She said with a pained smile, "It scared me that I did not know where you were..it made me wince, made me want to cry out. But you're right here in front of me, and I know Reina is safe, so I shouldn't cry should I?"
He looked at her without a trace of the prior nervousness and jest, "Mum."
"Yes?"
"I..I don't want that."
She was unsure of what he was saying, but she kept on listening.
"Mum...you know us...from inside out. Everything about us, every habit, every moment, every laugh we give behind your back, everytime we've done something stupid....you know all of it."
"I do..I do Ethan."
"But..." His eyes sparkled for the first time in a long time, "We know it too."
She was startled.
"Everytime you laugh on the phone, cry in the room alone, write those letters alone because you couldn't manage to not shed a tear! We know...I know of it...then please don't hide it. I'm your son! And I am stupid and uncaring and annoying at a lot times but please, if you want to cry, feel sad, please...please don't do it alone."
His throat was burning and his eyes felt red. There was a sudden pressure on his heart that he had never experienced before.
"Dang it..! Why now..?"
Anastasia smiled, then her smile grew wider and now, she was laughing through the tears and soon enough, Ethan followed.
A cacophony of laughter. That was how their house could be described.
An eternal laughter that was nestled within it, fostered for whoever so wished to enter it.
It was a laughter that molded itself to cater to each of them separately, but one thing it did for all of them.
Was that it loved them, thoroughly.
※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※
"Do you feel better, mum?"
"Much better."
"Ahh.." He breathed a sigh of relief, "We may have had to make another cut in the paragraph."
Her laugh was contagious, "It's fine though, isn't it? Now...where is your father? He just missed a very important episode, he's gonna really devastated."
"He said he had to do something important, afterwards he ran off."
"Good lord, 'ran off'....? How did he look?"
Ethan thought for a second and said, "He looked in a hurry. Like he was trying to get some stuff but was rushing and was struggling with it. He dashed out of the door after that."
She leaned back on the chair with a pensive worry about his being.
He was a worrisome man. The biggest worrywart anyone of them had ever seen in their lives.
But for him to be this clumsy? No, it couldn't possible.
If he was nervous he always hid it, always. Anastasia knew that better than anyone else.
They couldn't continue talking further as a doorbell interrupted their musings.
Quickly, Ethan went to the door to rectify any problems that the neighbors may have or anything else that could happen at such a time.
What came though, was something he had never anticipated.
There was a tall man, carrying a bouquet of flowers wearing a bright red uniform that looked really expensive to him.
"Good evening there. Can I ask about where you father might be?" He was charming as well, he looked polite and kind.
"What's taking you so long?" Was the distant voice of Anastasia that got closer and she too, was looking at the visitor, but instead of Ethan who was appreciating him, she was eyeing him with mock suspicion.
He smiled at her as well and she just narrowed her eyes. There was something about this man that she couldn't wrap her head around.
"Good evening, are you one of Johann's colleagues?"
"Of course, Mrs. Everett." he set down his field cap, which allowed his face to be seen clearly. "You may not know me, even if you do, there's no harm in a proper introduction is there?"
"I suppose not." Ethan replied, intrigued and utterly oblivious.
The man smiled.
"Head of the marshal department and a close friend of your father's, Thomas Trivola."